Ex Trump adviser: Lax southern US border security let in 'tens of thousands' of potential jihadists

Former Trump foreign policy adviser Walid Phares says the lack of security at the southern U.S. border potentially allowed "tens of thousands of potential jihadists" into the country.

"Look at the operation by Hamas into Israel: 1,000 to 3,000 Hamas operatives,"  Phares said on the "John Solomon Reports" podcast. "Look what they've done. Now you can imagine numerically, that there are tens of thousands of potential jihadist, Hamas and radicals who are now within the United States. This is the most scariest projection that one would think of."

Israel recently ramped up its military strikes in Gaza following the Oct. 7 terrorist attack against the Jewish state by Hamas earlier this month.

There have been thousands of casualties thus far. Iran officials hinted over the weekend that the Hezbollah militia group, an Iranian proxy, is ready to join the fight against Israel, stating that a “huge earthquake” would occur if they joined with Hamas. 

The overseas war has also refocused the concern among some security experts and elected officials about security at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

"We have a movement crossing through the Rio Grande without any control or without any vetting," Phares said. "It's not that we know that one thousand jihadists are in. We don't even know how many they are. We just know the numbers of the illegal migrants who are going in but we don't know  who's in."

Biden's time in the White House has seen record numbers of border encounters, with more than 7 million people illegally entering the country during his tenure.

"The public and all those who have been dealing with this matter ... should have been concerned over the past many years," Phares said. "The infiltration, the penetration, the setting up of cells within the United States, has been going on nonstop for the last couple of decades."